Allowing one person’s story to take precedence undercut that point and the American allegory I placed in the work, and they didn’t lean to one story line over another.”ĭrabinsky told Doctorow that he could do a better job. ”But one of the points of the book was how all these lives intertwined, how all these people became inextricable from one another. “If you are not careful, the piece will begin to lean to one story over another,” Doctorow said. Rollins) seemed to dominate the other story lines and take over the tale. In the film, the story of Coalhouse Walker (as played by Howard E. Doctorow was not happy with the motion picture version of his epic 1975 novel because it concentrated on only one of the many stories in the book, while minimizing the others. Doctorow and Garth Drabinsky talked about Ragtime. Over bowls of borscht at the Russian Tea Room, next door to Carnegie Hall, E. The best way to understand what’s happening in theater at the end of the 20th century is to examine how Drabinsky wooed a recalcitrant Doctorow and used unusual new methods to produce this show. How did Drabinsky pull it off? What does the creation of Ragtime tell us about Drabinsky? And what lies ahead?
#Ragtime broadway movie
The novel is complex and Doctorow was so wary of movie and theater adaptations that he resisted the idea of a musical version. Doctorow novel, Ragtime, into a Broadway musical. Drabinsky, on the other hand, is observant, attends synagogue and is active in Jewish organizations.ĭrabinsky’s biggest project so far is his transformation of the E.L. Ziegfeld was an assimilated Jew trying to distance himself from his roots. But there are differences: Drabinsky’s six theaters compared to Ziegfeld’s one Drabinsky’s much larger number of shows and Drabinsky’s Jewish identity. He’s been compared to Florenz Ziegfeld, who also produced lavish shows and housed them in his own theater. By the middle of 1999 this producer will own and operate six major theaters in the United States and Canada. This is in contrast to the normal practice of a producer renting theaters for each engagement. And three of these four companies will be playing in theaters built and owned by that producer. By the end of 1998 there will be four companies of Ragtime alone, playing simultaneously in New York, Chicago, Boston and Vancouver.
Never before has a producer had so many successful shows playing simultaneously - Ragtime, Phantom of the Opera, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Show Boat, Sunset Boulevard, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He still had fond memories of the thrill of being a passenger in Drabinsky’s private plane, and flying along with Garth’s exciting, soaring vision for the future of musical theater. Harold Prince told me that he tries not to think about that. It is interesting to see how a man who contributed so much to theater could crash and burn. This story captures him at the peak of his reputation.
He was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to seven years in jail. The fortunes of producer Garth Drabinsky changed dramatically in the year after this article was written, and he was charged with falsifying the books of his company. This story was originally written for the Jewish quarterly Inside Magazine in June, 1998, the month that The Lion King beat Ragtime for the Tony Award as Best Musical of the year.
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